


What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?

by AnnabelleVeal



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Aging, Dementia, Discussion of Assisted Suicide, Future Character Death, Future Fic, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Minor Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Mortality, Post-Canon, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:20:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26398537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnabelleVeal/pseuds/AnnabelleVeal
Summary: Once, Joe had taken his hand after watching the cut on his finger close up and said carefully, "I think we need to talk about what happens if I die before you."Joe grows old. Nicky...doesn’t.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 118
Kudos: 319





	What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the tags and check the end notes if you want more specific content warnings.

Nicky had always believed that he and Joe would lose their immortality at the same time. They had been reborn together and they would die their final deaths together—it was destiny.

So when Joe took a wrong step off the curb and stared in confusion as his rolled ankle continued to throb minutes later, Nicky turned and punched the brick facade of the building beside them, just so he could see the unhealing scrapes on his own knuckles.

He punched the wall over and over and over again, watching in horror as his fingers snapped and reformed.

He kept beating against the bricks, waiting desperately for the mangled skin and bones to stop knitting back together, until Joe came up behind him and wrapped him in his arms, cradling him as he sank to the pavement and wept.

\---

In time they adjusted to the new state of things. Joe joined Andy and Copley in running logistics on jobs, while Nicky, Nile, and Quynh learned how to fill in the gaps. Joe grumbled at the nuisances of having a normal body again, learning about sore muscles and seasonal allergies and a hundred other things he had forgotten from his life before. 

It was not entirely without its perks, Nicky discovered, as he sucked hard at Joe’s collarbone and was rewarded by a delightful red bruise blooming below the skin. 

And besides, Nicky reasoned, Joe had been three years older than him when he died the first time, so of course it might take Nicky a little longer to catch up. His time would come and they would still grow old together, just like it was supposed to be.

\---

Three years became five years became ten, and still Nicky’s immortality stuck to him like his shadow (or like shit to a shovel, he thought, in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Booker’s). He tried not to lose faith. Joe's body was still that of a relatively young man, and as long as Nicky was mortal by the time Joe reached old age, it would be alright. He would still be able to follow him. Joe hesitated when Nicky told him this, eyes sad, like maybe he was about to object, so Nicky kissed him, hard, and swallowed any possible protest. 

Every few months, Nicky would check to see if maybe he had finally stopped healing, and every time there was no change. But it was alright, he was a patient man. 

Once, Joe had taken his hand after watching the cut on his finger close up and said carefully, "I think we need to talk about what happens if I die before you."

"No,” Nicky said, shaking his head. “No, I refuse to consider that as a possibility. I cannot accept that we would be brought into this life to find each other, only to have you ripped away from me. The universe would not be so cruel."

“Believe me, I hope more than anything that you’re right, but just in case, I need to know that when the time comes, you'll be able to let me go. To move on—"

Nicky started to interrupt, but Joe held his hand up to stop him.

“—not right away, of course. I expect at least two years of full mourning dress,” he said, the corner of his mouth quirking up slightly. “But Nicolò, I'm serious. I need to know that you'll be okay.”

Nicky wanted to say that of course he wouldn't be okay, that living without Joe would be like living with half his limbs removed, or his heart outside his body. That he would rather spend the next thousand years at the bottom of the ocean like Quynh than spend them here without Joe by his side.

But Joe was staring at him plaintively, eyes so full of love and worry, that Nicky just stayed silent as he continued, "Please, when it's my time, I want to go out like my first death—swift and easy."

 _And by my hand?_ Nicky thought to himself, panic and bile rising in his throat. "I wish you wouldn't ask this of me."

“I know,” Joe said. “It’s not fair, none of it is.”

Nicky sighed. “I will do my best.”

Joe smiled at him sadly. “You always do.”

\---

Andy died, and the world shifted on its axis.

\---

Quynh called from a burner phone. She and Andy had been traveling for the past eight months: part greatest hits reunion tour, part bucket list trip. They’d been side-swiped by a truck while on a motorbike, she told them. A hit-and-run. When she revived, she’d found Andy lying mangled and unconscious by the side of the road, spine broken and skull fractured, no hope of a meaningful recovery. She'd given her a final kiss and shot her straight through the heart. 

"I need some time. I'll see you in a few years, give or take a century," she had said, hanging up the phone. Joe immediately tried to call her back, but the line was already dead.

\---

Things fell apart for a while. The three of them floundered, not sure how to navigate the gaping, empty spaces around them. Sometimes they lashed out, finding endless ways to be awful to each other in their grief. Nile took off at one point (probably to see Booker, but Nicky didn't ask), and he and Joe spiraled into their worst fight in decades, the kind that simmered and flared over the better part of a week. 

They were talking (shouting) it through again, going around in circles, when Nicky said for the third time, "I just don't understand how she could _do_ that," and he caught something in Joe's face shift. It was a slight twitch of his lip, or maybe a furrow between the eyes, but it stopped him in his tracks.

"What is it? Are you going to defend her again for murdering the woman she loved without even attempting to save her?"

Joe rose from where he was sitting. He crossed to Nicky and placed his hands on his shoulders to stop his pacing and caught his eye. "Do you really believe Quynh would have shot her if she thought there was any chance she would recover? It was what Andy would have wanted. It's what _I_ would want."

"But, to not even _try._ I don't understand it—if there was even a sliver of hope that they could get more time together. I just…" he trailed off.

"My love, we have all of us had so very much time already."

"It will _never_ be enough," Nicky said, tears in his eyes, both of them knowing they weren't really talking about Quynh anymore.

\---

The thing is, it’s not like Nicky had never considered it; 900-and-some-odd years together meant of course he had thought about losing Joe. 

One time on a battlefield, Joe threw himself on a grenade and Nicky had watched in horror as the blast blew apart his body. During the endless pause as he waited to see if Joe would wake up, Nicky had expected to feel some sort of clarity—maybe even acceptance. But all he had felt was a yawning terror at the realization of how long eternity could be.

\---

Nicky was sitting on the bed behind Joe, watching him in the mirror as he combed his beard. He kept it a little shorter these days, and both it and his hair were streaked heavily with silver. He watched Joe's fingers stroke over a few wiry gray chest hairs. “When did I become so old?” he mused out loud, the corners of his mouth tugging downward with a hint of unhappiness. 

Nicky slipped off the bed and came to stand behind him, wrapping his arms around Joe's waist and hooking his chin over his shoulder. "The better question, I believe," he said, fingers dipping beneath the waistband of Joe’s pants for a moment before trailing upwards again, "is how is it that you become even more handsome every day?"

In the mirror, Nicky saw Joe roll his eyes, but he brought his hands down to rest on Nicky's arms and leaned his weight back. "You flatter me too much."

"It's not flattery, it's true. You are, as the kids say, a total daddy."

Joe snorted. "No kid has said that for at least twenty years." He turned around and buried his face in Nicky's neck before mouthing along the tendon and up towards his jaw.

Nicky slid his hands into Joe's back pockets and tugged his hips forward. "Okay, _daddy_ ," he said, and Joe huffed out a laugh and leaned in to kiss him.

Later, when they were lying side by side, sated and content, Joe rolled towards him and said, "I won't mind, you know. If you need to find other people to be with."

Nicky turned his head. "Right now? I don't think I could come again so soon." He grinned as Joe swatted at his thigh.

"You know what I mean—when I'm old and frail and my dick doesn't work—”

“—we will get you some Viagra and a nice wedge pillow."

" _Nicky."_

Nicky turned all the way over to face him. "Please," he said, taking hold of Joe's hands, "do not insult my love for you by believing that there will ever come a time when I would not want you. I will take you however I can have you, for as long as I can have you.”

"Now who is the romantic," Joe grumbled, but his eyes were shining.

Nicky was sure there had been tens of thousands of moments like these in their long lifetime, and he had loved every one of them. But he had not treasured them—not really, not the way that he did now—until faced with the reality that they would end.

\---

The years passed. They had a good life and did good work. It was harder with just the three of them, but they watched the world change around them and tried to change with it. They lost Copley suddenly to a stroke, and as Joe grew noticeably older and slower, Nicky and Nile reached an unspoken agreement that they would take some time off. 

There was a house just outside of Ostia—close enough to smell the sea, but with enough land to avoid prying eyes and nosy neighbors—that Joe had bought and renovated around the turn of the last century. Nicky and Joe settled there, furnishing a spare room for Nile for whenever she wanted to visit. She was finishing a master’s degree in Florence, something about archival studies and decolonization, but on long weekends she would drive down and they cooked elaborate dinners and ate late in the evening out in the yard under the stars. There was a peace and stillness to their lives now that Nicky hadn’t felt in years.

\---

It started out so small—Joe misplacing the glasses he now had to wear for reading, forgetting a word in English only to reach for it in Italian and find it missing there as well, mixing up places and dates.

One night, Nicky found him sitting on the couch, an old sketchbook open on his lap and Joe staring down at it with a perplexed look on his face.

"Joe?" Nicky said, as he sat beside him.

"I was looking at this picture and I knew that I knew him, but I couldn’t remember," he said. Nicky leaned over and saw he was looking at a drawing he'd done of Copley years ago, face in three-quarter profile, as though he was watching something just to the left of the page.

Joe traced his finger along the pencil lines. "I knew there was a man we’d worked with, but I couldn’t recall anything about him, it was like there was just a blank where the memories should be...” he trailed off, looking up helplessly at Nicky.

Nicky swallowed around the lump in his throat. “It's late, come to bed. Sleep will help,” he said, and Joe obliged, following Nicky back to their room.

The next week he took Joe to the doctor.

After all the poking and prodding and scans and tests, they had an answer.

The train ride passed in silence. "I'm going to lie down," Joe said, as soon as they got inside, and he retreated to the bedroom.

Nicky called Nile.

She had been staying at her apartment in Rome, and within an hour she was sitting at the kitchen table with him. 

“How bad is it?” 

“Early-to-mid stages, they think.” He swirled the dregs of his tea around in the mug. “They said it could take anywhere from three to ten years to—" he stopped himself, not able to say it. 

“Did they tell you much about what to expect?” she asked, her gaze piercing.

Nicky shook his head. “Some, I think, but I couldn’t really hear it. Everything was a blur.”

Nile chewed her lip. “My grandma had Alzheimer’s. She lived with it for almost twelve years. It…can get really hard towards the end.” 

Nicky folded his arms on the table and laid his head down on them. “What if this is some sort of punishment for all of my past sins—having to lose him twice.”

"Do you really believe you're so special that God would put Joe through this just to punish you?" Nile asked, skeptical.

Nicky let out a long sigh. “I’m not sure what I believe.”

Nile placed her hand on the back of his head, fingers carding gently through the short hairs at the nape of his neck, and it felt like some kind of benediction.

\---

Something jolted Nicky awake and he shot upright on the couch, looking over to where Joe had dozed off beside him and finding the space empty. The clock on the wall read 2:30. A sharp bang came from the hallway—the front door was open and swinging in the wind. _Shit_. Nicky grabbed his shoes and a coat and took off running down the street, skidding on the rain-slicked pavement.

A few blocks away, he finally spotted him—huddled under a bus shelter, arms wrapped tightly around his bare chest, shivering hard. 

“Joe? Yusuf?” Nicky called out, and Joe looked up and stumbled over towards him. Nicky met him halfway, immediately shrugging out of the coat and draping it around Joe’s shaking shoulders. 

“Nicolò,” Joe said, and this close Nicky could tell that he had been crying. “I’m sorry. I woke up and I thought. I thought we were in Tunis? I was trying to find—but then—I didn’t know—I can’t—” he broke off with a frustrated sob and Nicky pulled him close, hung on tightly.

“I’m scared,” Joe said, the admission coming out barely more than a whisper. “I'm not ready to leave you." 

"Well good, because I'm not ready for you to leave," Nicky replied stubbornly.

Joe continued as if he hadn't heard him, "I'm scared of what’s happening to me. I feel like I'm slipping away and half the time I don't know where, or _when_ , I am. I'm scared of how much worse it's going to get. Nicky, I need you to promise—"

Nicky cut him off. "It’s okay, my love. Everything is okay. Let's go home, alright? You'll feel better in the morning."

Slowly, Joe nodded his head and let Nicky help him back to the house.

\---

Nile started spending more and more time with them, eventually subletting her apartment and moving in entirely. They took turns driving Joe into the city for his various appointments. Nile usually posed as a home health aide, but Nicky had never lied about his love for Joe and he refused to start now, so he always just said that he was his husband. He listened to the nurses gossiping about it today—saying that Joe must be rich, that Nicky was a gold digger, or maybe it was some kind of immigration scheme. Nicky ignored them.

They were quiet on the drive home. Joe was staring out the window like he was watching the scenery, but his eyes were unfocused. Nicky reached over to turn on the radio and Joe stopped him and took his hand.

“I feel like I should apologize,” he said.

Baffled, Nicky asked, “What on earth do you think you have to apologize for?”

"You and Nile are being so good to me, and I’ve been secretly very selfish. Because as awful as all of this is, a part of me is so goddamn _grateful_ that I'll never have to live in a world without you." He turned his head then to look at him. "I’m so sorry, Nicky. All you’ve ever asked of me is that we go together, and I can’t give you that.”

Nicky swallowed hard, blinking back tears. He didn’t let go of Joe’s hand for the rest of the drive.

\---

It was late afternoon and the sun was hanging low above the treetops. Joe was sitting outside on the porch in the sturdy Adirondack chair Nile had made during a brief foray into woodworking years ago. A thick quilt lay across his lap and his eyes were closed, a slight smile on his face. 

He opened them as Nicky approached. "Nicolò," he murmured happily, and reached out a hand.

Nicky grasped it and lifted it to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to his knuckles. The skin was spotted and papery, but still smelled like Joe. 

"How are you, hayati?" he asked.

Joe smiled. "I dreamt of you."

Nicky perched on the armrest and ran a hand through Joe's thinning curls. "Good dreams, I hope."

"Mmm." Joe leaned into the touch. “There was a garden, and we were eating oranges. You licked the juice from my fingers.” 

"Cádiz," Nicky said. "We had been at sea for six months. I think we both almost died of scurvy. We spent our entire week in port eating oranges and making love."

Joe frowned, a hint of agitation creeping into his voice. "I don't remember that."

Nicky ran a soothing hand down his arm. "It's alright, let's talk about something else. Do you want dinner soon? Nile is making couscous tfaya." He could sense Joe growing more upset and tried to steer him towards another topic, but Joe persisted.

"I remember the boat,” he started slowly, “but, after—didn’t we—the port, didn’t we go to Haifa?” He concentrated for a moment. “Yes, it was Haifa. Where—where you and your invaders burned the city." Joe shied away from him then, his eyes full of accusations. Nicky sighed and stood up, taking several steps back and holding his hands up placatingly.

"It was many, many years after that. You had already forgiven me long before. It was so much more than I deserved, but I have spent every day since then trying to be the man you believed me to be."

Joe stared at him blankly. "I don't remember," he said again, but he settled somewhat and let Nicky readjust the blanket that had slipped from his legs.

"Just rest, Yusuf. I'll come get you when dinner is ready."

"What is Andy making?"

Nicky bit his cheek to keep from correcting him. "Couscous tfaya."

Joe hummed contentedly as he closed his eyes again. "I like tfaya."

Nicky just squeezed his shoulder and turned back towards the house.

\---

All of their long life together, he and Joe had always protected each other. It was what they did, the constant thread running through the ages, as natural for them as breathing. Except now, Joe was hurting and there was nothing Nicky could do—no one to fight, no battle to wage—because in the end the only thing he couldn’t protect Joe from was the treachery of his own body.

\---

Nicky woke to the feeling of Joe stiffening in his arms. He stared at Nicky for a moment before his expression turned dark. "Why won't you stay dead?" he yelled in his old dialect of Arabic, reaching behind him for a sword that wasn't there. "How many times must I kill you?"

He swung wildly at Nicky, beating at his chest and face with his fists, grasping for anything he could use as a weapon. Nicky staggered backwards off the bed, trying to shield himself from the blows without hurting Joe.

"Please Yusuf, it's me, it's Nicolò. You know me. It's alright, you're safe here." Nicky reached out towards him, wanting to comfort, to soothe. Joe snatched a glass of water from the nightstand and hurled it at Nicky's head. He ducked, and it shattered against the wall, raining shards down around him as Joe kept cursing him from the bed. The door flung open and Nile burst in.

"Nicky? Is everything okay? What's—” she stopped and took in the scene, seeming to understand what had happened. She crossed to Joe, speaking in a low, gentle voice. "Hey, hey, it’s okay. He isn't here to hurt you, you're alright." 

Joe eyed her suspiciously but let her place a calming hand on his arm. "Who are you?"

"I'm Nile," she said, "I'm your friend. Everything's okay. What do you need?"

"Make him leave," Joe hissed, his voice full of contempt as he stared straight at Nicky. Nile turned towards him, apologetic, but Nicky was already backing out of the room, his heart breaking in his chest.

He went down the hall to the bathroom and slumped down on the edge of the tub. It had been nearly a millennium since he'd seen that look of hatred in Joe's eyes. He had thought he would never have to see it again. On the counter beside him was his razor. He stared at it, considering; it had been half a year or more since he last tested his immortality. He picked up the razor and prised out the blade, taking a breath before drawing it across the top of his thigh. Blood welled to the surface for a moment, but the skin was already starting to close. He wanted to scream in frustration. Instead, he began to slash frenziedly at his bare arms and legs.

He must have accidentally hit an artery, because he came to in a pool of his own blood with Nile standing over him looking terrified—and then furious—when he blinked back to life.

“You need to get your shit together,” she said, grabbing some towels off the rack and dumping them in his lap. “I mean, what were you thinking? What if that had worked, huh, what then?”

He covered his face with his hands, still tacky with his drying blood. He didn’t have an answer.

Nile sighed. “Joe’s asleep again. It’s almost five—you should clean up and take a shower. I’ll start breakfast.”

Blindly, he reached out his hand. She took it without hesitation. “Thank you. I’m sorry for—I’m sorry.” 

She squeezed his hand. “Come downstairs when you’re ready.” 

\---

The doctor prescribed Joe a new medication to help with sleep. It was made by Merrick's drug company. Nicky grabbed the bottle and flung it hard across the room when he saw. Nile allowed him his outburst and then calmly went to pick it up, placing it back with the others on the table where she was separating out doses into a pill organizer. 

"I think it's time we called Booker," she said, not looking up from her work.

"No," Nicky replied flatly.

She stared at him for a long, hard moment. He held her gaze until she sighed and went back to counting pills.

"You're not the only one who loves him,” she said, voice harsh and low, when he was halfway across the room.

He stopped and turned back. She looked up at him, her lip quivering and her eyes brimming with tears. "You know how I know that you're drowning, Nicky? It’s because I am, too.”

“Please," she continued softly, voice cracking, "let us do this as a family."

Booker arrived two days later. Nile hugged him tightly, the relief clear on her face. Nicky watched from the porch and kept his expression carefully schooled. 

He met Booker’s eye, and his resolve almost broke at the tentative look he saw there. Almost. "I'm still mad at you, you know."

"I know," Booker said.

Nicky nodded. "Good,” he said, before turning and walking back into the house.

\---

Booker had changed in the intervening years. He was sober a lot more often now, for one. But he also seemed—steadier maybe, less haunted. He and Nile slotted back together so easily that Nicky was left feeling off-kilter, for the first time ever the odd one out.

\---

Joe was having a bad day. One of the ones where he was stuck in a time long ago. He screamed at Nicky during dinner and refused to eat anything. After, Booker had taken him to the living room to try to get settled. Nicky could hear the soft sounds of a nature documentary playing on the TV.

He was just finishing up the dishes when Booker came back into the kitchen. He paused when he saw Nicky, eyes shifting quickly like he was looking for an escape route. They hadn’t been alone in a room together since his arrival. Nicky dried his hands on a dish towel and turned to face him. 

"You're good with him," he said, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Booker looked uncomfortable. "I think it's because he doesn't remember me most of the time. Maybe that makes it easier."

“I seem to just agitate him these days,” Nicky said, sighing as he leaned back against the counter. “I try to tell him stories from our life, remind him of where and when he is, but so often it just upsets him more.”

“Sometimes it’s better to let them keep the delusions. Join him in his world instead of trying to drag him back to this one.” 

Nicky bristled. “Wow, thank you so much for that. Do you have any other doctor’s office pamphlet bullshit that you would like to share?" He felt his anger growing, spooling into something dark and mean in his gut. He wanted to lash out, to break something, to _hurt_ something. "You have no right to tell me how to care for him. You have no idea what it's been like. You haven’t been here, having to watch as you lose him by degrees each day.”

"Yes, what could I _possibly_ know. It's not like I have years of experience with seeing everyone I’ve ever loved suffer and die," Booker snapped. “Except Andy, of course. You all made sure of that," he added with a harsh laugh.

Nicky started to interject, but Booker was on a roll now and continued undeterred. 

"And don’t you dare throw it in my face that I wasn’t here. I mean, _Christ,_ Nicky—if it weren't for Nile were you even going to tell me he was sick, or was I just supposed to show up in London in fifty years going _where's Joe_?"

"Maybe that's what you deserved,” Nicky said, folding his arms across his chest.

Booker recoiled, looking hurt. "Do you blame me for this?"

"I watched him die over and over again in that lab. Twenty times in an hour at one point. It's not unreasonable to think that there's some sort of logic to all this—that there's a finite number of times we can come back."

"Oh, so there’s ‘s _ome sort of logic'_ now. Because I thought this was all _destiny_ ,” he spat out with a sardonic twist to his mouth.

Nicky rounded on him, full of righteous fury like he hadn't felt in years. "No, it’s not, because if it was destiny it would be you and not him!" 

Booker stared at him, nonplussed. "...Well, _yes_. That was kind of what I was going for."

Nicky started to open his mouth, but he had no rebuttal for that. He sagged against the wall, all the fight gone out of him. He rubbed at his face and felt the skin of his palms rasping over week-old stubble he couldn't be bothered to shave.

There was a tentative hand on his shoulder, and when he didn't shrug it off, Booker stepped closer and hugged him. Nicky stubbornly kept his arms at his sides, but he accepted the embrace. "Don't think for a second that this isn't killing me, too," Booker said softly. "Just, not in the way that matters, I guess."

Nicky sighed, deflated. "If I’m being fair, I think I've probably died as many times as him or more, so maybe there is no logic _or_ destiny."

He felt Booker nod. "Maybe it's just life."

They broke apart, both considering the other. Nicky was quiet for a long moment before saying, "Will you stay? After?"

"For as long as you’ll let me.”

Nicky nodded. "It's good to have you home," he said, and Booker smiled, eyes wet.

Joe cried out from the other room. Nicky moved to go to him, but Booker stopped him with a gentle hand on his chest. “Nile and I can take care of him. You really should get some rest. You look like shit,” he added ruefully.

Nicky still hesitated, but Booker looked at him, imploring—“Please, let us help you”—and he relented.

\---

Joe spent more time sleeping now, either in bed or propped up in the recliner in the living room. Nicky had never cared about football before, but now he always had a game on in the background, dutifully narrating as Joe drifted beside him.

Sometimes Nicky would come into the room and Joe would see his face and smile. More often, he would be staring into the middle distance, eyes swimming with tears, and when Nicky placed a hand on his shoulder he would startle and pull back, fear and confusion marring his features.

\--

It was late morning and Joe was sitting at the table, a stack of paper beside him and a set of pastels Nile had bought him scattered around. He was making a series of lines, over and over again in different colors, covering the whole page in streaks of purple and orange and red. It reminded Nicky of watching the sunset in the desert, when the entire sky would explode in a riot of color.

"What are you drawing?" he asked

Joe looked up, just now noticing Nicky, then back down at the paper. He frowned. "I'm not sure."

"It's very beautiful," Nicky said. "May I join you?" He gestured at the chair across from Joe.

Joe regarded him warily but nodded. When Nicky sat down, Joe pushed the stack of blank papers towards him before resuming his broad strokes across the page.

Nicky had never been much of an artist, always content to leave that to Joe. He picked up a thick black pastel and sketched a crude house, the cartoonish kind a child might draw with just three lines and a slanted roof. He drew four stick figures standing next to it.

Joe had stopped his work, now watching Nicky curiously instead. Nicky turned the paper around so he could see, feeling awkward and unsure. "What do you think?"

Joe reached for it, studying it intently, his brow furrowed. He took the pastel from Nicky's hand and carefully added two more figures beside the others. He slid the paper back across the table. "That's better."

"Yes," Nicky agreed, warmth flooding his chest. "Yes, it is."

\---

One morning, Nicky came down into the kitchen and saw Booker and Nile sitting close together at the table, talking in low voices. They stopped abruptly when they spotted him. 

"What's going on?"

A look passed between them, inscrutable, and then Nile stood up and came around to the other side of the table. She pulled out a chair for him and motioned at it. "Come sit down, Nicky. We need to talk to you about something."

He sat, unease growing steadily. Nile hovered at his shoulder. 

"So, um, here's the thing”—Booker shifted awkwardly, couldn't meet his eyes—“after Andy died, Joe came to see me and asked me to draw up some papers." Booker took a folder that was lying in front of him and slid it across the table to Nicky. 

He opened it and scanned it quickly, a lump forming in his throat, not quite believing what he was reading. _I, Yusuf al-Kaysani, being of sound mind, willfully and voluntarily declare_ —

He slammed the folder closed and started to stand, but Nile stopped him. "No. No way," Nicky said, his heart now threatening to jackrabbit out of his chest.

Booker took out the sheet of paper and turned it over, pointing to the bottom where Joe had signed his name in big, looping letters, followed by Copley's neat script on the witness line below.

"It's what he said he wanted," Booker said, soft and apologetic.

Nicky's eyes skimmed the page with its long list of ways a person could be kept alive, and Joe's initials filling every check box in the _NO_ column.

"We talked about it some," Booker continued, "He said that as senseless as Andy's death was, at least it was fast, clean. She didn’t have to linger."

"But why wouldn't he tell me? Why would he talk to _you_ about it?" Nicky asked, voice shaking.

Booker shrugged. "Maybe he was trying to spare you more pain."

"Maybe…" he said, but doubt was creeping in because even as he said it, he thought back through the years—to all the times that Joe _had_ tried to talk to him about it. To the times he had practically begged Nicky to promise him that he would be willing to—to _what_? To _kill_ him? It had always seemed so preposterous, so far away, and so Nicky had brushed him off, sure that his own time would come and they would meet their end together.

Of course Joe had gone to Booker, because no matter everything else between them, he knew that Booker would make him that promise.

Nicky dropped his head into his hands. He remembered all those years ago, after they lost Andy, when Joe had looked at him with pleading eyes and asked Nicky to accept when it was time to let him go. He had never denied Joe anything before—he wasn’t going to start now. 

"How does this work, exactly?”

"It doesn't have to be soon," Nile offered quietly. "But, when it gets bad, there are...facilities we could take him to." Nicky looked up at her and saw that she had been crying, twin tear tracks running down her cheeks. 

"No," Nicky said, sure of this one thing at least. "No, it should be here. At home."

Booker reached out and covered Nicky's hand with his own. "I can get us everything we'll need."

They didn't discuss it again, but two weeks later Booker came home with a brown paper package tucked under his arm. Nicky followed him to the kitchen and watched as he unwrapped a small amber vial and put it in the fridge. “Nothing has to happen yet,” Booker said. “It’s just so we have it when it’s time.”

Nicky nodded, but he kept staring at the closed refrigerator door long after Booker had left.

\---

Nicky was sitting on the porch steps, smoking a cigarette and watching the sun set low behind the trees. 

“Those things‘ll kill you, you know.”

He looked up and saw Booker leaning against the railing. “God willing,” Nicky said, as he passed him the cigarette. Booker took a long drag before stubbing it out.

"That's my line." He shot Nicky a pointed look.

Nicky ignored him.

Booker sighed and came to sit beside him, hands clasped between his knees, looking up at the sky. They sat in silence for a long time.

“How did you bear it?" he asked suddenly. "Watching them die while you stayed behind, all those years spent without them. How did you survive?”

“You were there Nicky, you know that I didn't—I fell the fuck apart.” Booker ran a hand across his face, continued, "Time doesn't heal all wounds, but it does help. So does therapy, apparently."

Nicky laughed at that, a single surprised _hah_ , like it was punched out of him. Booker smiled, a moment of reprieve. 

"I think I understand better now why you did it. It doesn't make it right, but—these past years—I—" Nicky took a deep breath, exhaled. "There have been times when I felt desperate for a way out, too."

Booker looked stricken. “As much as I envied what you and Joe had, I never would have wished this for you, for either of you.”

“I know,” Nicky said, hearing it for the apology that it was.

They were quiet for a while after that, listening to the cicadas drone and watching the stars appear one-by-one in the sky.

“I can't remember our last good day," Nicky said, "the last time he was really present, really knew me. It came on so slowly that I didn't notice until it was gone. That's what I wish we could have—one last good day.”

"Do you still love him?" Booker asked. "Not who he was, but Joe exactly as he is right now."

"Of course," Nicky said without thinking, relieved when he realized that it was the truth.

"Then every day you still have with him is a good day."

\---

In some ways, things became easier as Joe got worse. He lost any flicker of recognition of Nicky, but this meant that he also lost the fear and anger towards him. For so long, all Nicky had felt was the pain of losing Joe, so much so that it made it hard to be around him sometimes. Now, all Nicky could feel was their time running short, and he wanted nothing more than to spend every second of every day they had left together. 

He spent entire afternoons sitting in the garden beside Joe, holding his hand and stroking his hair, reading to him from old volumes of poetry. He bathed him at night, lathering his back and shoulders, massaging shampoo into his scalp, and Joe would relax and lean into his touch. Nicky tried to focus on these small, sensory pleasures. He would lotion Joe’s dry hands and feet, play him records he had loved from before, and cook for him all his favorite dishes from back home, letting the fragrant aromas permeate the house. 

One warm, bright day, the four of them piled into Nile’s car and drove to the beach. They rented a big umbrella, and Nicky sat beside Joe and slathered him in sunscreen before helping him down to the water. They stood there for a long time, waves lapping at their ankles, staring out at the sparkling blue-green of the Mediterranean. 

Later, they settled on a towel back in the shade and Joe stuck his legs out and burrowed his feet into the sand. Nicky shifted behind him, bracketing him with his knees and guiding him to lean back until he was resting against Nicky’s chest. Nicky tried very, very hard to not so much as breathe for fear that he would break the moment, but Joe just let out a contented sigh and rested his head against Nicky’s shoulder. 

“This is nice,” Joe said.

“It really is,” Nicky agreed, and he pressed a kiss to Joe’s temple as they sat and watched the tide slowly roll out.

\---

After they finally stopped killing each other, it had taken nearly twenty years before Joe died again from something other than Nicky’s sword.

“Yusuf!” Nicolò shouted, noticing a half-second too late and trying to alert him to the danger. Yusuf looked up at the sound of his name and met Nicolò’s eyes, smiling brilliantly for one perfect moment before the bandit behind him slit his throat. Nicolò was already up and moving, grabbing his sword and making quick work of the attacker.

He knelt beside Yusuf's body, sighing with relief when he saw the tell-tale twitches of life returning. “I was not sure if you resisted all death or only my best efforts to kill you,” he said. 

Yusuf groaned as he sat up and rubbed at where the wound had been. “If those were your best efforts, I am very disappointed.” He spat some blackish blood into the dirt.

Nicolò laughed brightly, before turning serious again. “I do not know what I would have done if you had not come back to me,” he confessed, voice soft.

Yusuf took Nicolò’s hand and brought it to his lips. “I will always come back to you, as long as I’m able.”

“And what if there's a day when you are no longer able? What if I cannot follow? Cannot even say goodbye?”

Yusuf paused, considering, before reaching out and cupping Nicolò’s face in his palms. “Then let us make our goodbyes now, and we can know that they are said if that day ever comes.”

He pulled him close and kissed him gently on each corner of his mouth. “Goodbye, my Nicolò. Thank you now for what I am sure will be many lifetimes of happiness.”

\---

Joe was sleeping when Nicky came into their room. He quietly changed clothes and slipped into bed beside him. Joe murmured something unintelligible as his arms reached out to encircle Nicky—his body still remembering, even when his mind did not. Nicky watched him. In sleep his face was softer, the lines less pronounced. He looked more like the Yusuf that Nicky fell in love with so very many years ago. He soaked him in, trying to memorize every crease, every lash, every freckle.

Very soon, Nicky knew, there would come a day when Joe would be gone and moments like these would live on only in his heart. But for now, in this moment, Joe was here, warm and snug against him, and Nicky would savor every second, praying that it would be enough to sustain him for however much longer he was to endure. 

He stayed like that, holding Joe tight, breathing him in, until the first light of dawn broke through the curtains and he finally closed his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> In this story, Joe ages and develops dementia while Nicky stays immortal. There is discussion of non-voluntary euthanasia for Joe (meaning that at the time of euthanasia he will not have the mental capacity to legally consent, but Joe has previously stated explicitly that this is something he wants). The story stops before Joe's actual death, but it is definitely imminent.
> 
> There is one brief description of self-harm that results in an accidental death (temporary).
> 
> There is also a brief recounting of Andy's death. It involves grievous injuries after a vehicle accident and Quynh mercy-killing her as an act of love.
> 
> Someday I will write a happy story for this fandom, but this isn’t it.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [What (Else) Are You Doing for the Rest of Your Life?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26533342) by [charlottechill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlottechill/pseuds/charlottechill)




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